You might want to post on your local Nextdoor page as well. Ours here in Dunnellon is always busy with lost & found dogs & cats. Good luck finding your girl.
I am so sorry. Sometimes it’s a curse border collies are so smart and agile!
If you haven’t done so, I’d contact all local shelters as well. Quite often, someone who finds a dog will take them there. Even if she’s hard to catch, if she’s tired and hungry, she may have ended up in one. Especially on a weekend, they may not have reached out.
Barns have lots of hiding places, and front porches are another attractive place to flatten and hide.
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Thank you! I will call our animal shelters tomorrow and a lot of other places. We’ve been driving around the last few hours here this afternoon, stopping by homes and farms, yelling out the window.
DH and I drove down some long driveways, hoping we wouldn’t get met by someone with a gun. So far no one has seen her.
My neighbor sent me a post from someone who saw a black and white dog with a white tail 14 miles away near some roads we have never heard of.
She said that would put the dog on the south side of Rutherfordton (we are north) and we don’t think she could get that far or want to head that way. Our dog has a black tail with just the tip being white. But our hearts jumped at that post.
The posts on Facebook are being shared. We stopped at one home and the lady said she had just read the post. We’re back now with tired voices.
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The only small mercy is that a black-and-white dog is easy to spot, versus an all black or brown one!
Anecdotally, but I have heard of dogs coming back home after a few days lost–very hungry–so I wouldn’t despair just yet. Sometimes it’s just the hunger instinct overpowering the “saw something scary, must run” instinct.
Make sure to call your Animal Control Officer if you have not already. I cannot tell you how many missing pets go unreported with ACO, only to have pets miss reunion with their people because well-meaning people don’t realize the found dog is “missing” versus stray, and foster/adopt them out.
Jingles for Abby.
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I now have a Next Door account and have posted a lost dog post there. Have found our local community Facebook page so am working on that.
Calling the schools and asking for the bus drivers to be on the lookout for her is a great idea. Never would have thought of doing that.
Will get in touch with animal rescue groups in our area and the local animal shelter. Will call the Sheriffs dept. too. Will call Animal Control as well. Now have an agenda for tomorrow.
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Oh no, all the jingles.
Could you leave dinner on the porch and reach out to any shelter in the nearby counties? Dogs can cover ground if scared.
I do hope dog shows up soon and unharmed.
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Call your vets (local) too. And believe. I had a dog run and go missing for nearly 3 weeks. This was way before Facebook and the internet. I posted flyers EVERYWHERE. The one for the feed store with the $200 reward got me my dog back. I’m pretty sure they took her tag and collar off and didn’t scan her chip. But they saw the cash and called. I paid the cash. Knowing they kept her because I just wanted her home
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Agree with this.
On a random day last summer a parrot unknown to me was chowing down at my wild bird feeder. I got a photo and posted it on Pawboost. Pawboost circulated the post on the local Facebook. The parrot’s owner got in touch with me. All within about 8 hours!
Pawboost didn’t give my identifying info, but when the owner made contact I invited her to come watch the feeder all she wished. She did for a few days, but parrot had flown further and didn’t return.
Although the parrot didn’t return to my feeder, the Pawboost post helped his owner track him.
And more importantly the Pawboost post went to FB all around this area got the attention of other locals who spotted the parrot and also posted.
And eventually the owner was able to recapture her parrot through a Pawboost connection. Maybe 2 weeks after he got away? – he was at least 5 miles from his home!
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From reading up on lost dog situations … there are dog-finders who have researched and shared their findings on the internet, free to anyone to read more info. (Interestingly most of this applies also to small breeds we think of as ‘house dogs’ or companion dogs.)
Dogs tend to follow water, creeks, streams, that sort of thing.
Breeds act fairly predictably when lost. A few breeds are likely to approach people, most will avoid people, some go straight to the nearest woods. (Labs tend to be found with someone who takes them in because they think everyone is their friend. Most breeds are found in a wild-ish area.)
Dogs can travel an amazing distance, many miles, from home. (Even small dogs.) They can be much farther away than their owners guess they would travel.
There are people who scoop up dogs to ransom them back to the owner. Some may keep the dog for a few weeks before advertising, thinking the separation time will bring a higher price from the owner. Some have no problem turning down the owner and selling the dog elsewhere. There are strategies for dealing with ‘ransom’ people, that’s also on the internet.
If you locate your dog while it is still loose, please do internet research on specific re-capture techniques before doing anything. The dog is in ‘wild mind’ and will not react as they normally do at home. All the sites say do not try to physically capture the dog unless you are 100% sure of success, as they may bolt again. Also if a capture is effected, immediately constrain the dog so that it cannot run and get it secured in the car. Even if the dog appears to be calm. A harness is much safer than a collar. But have both on hand as it may be hard to get the harness on. Once the dog is home it may still run again out of wild instinct.
Good luck !!! I hope you have your dog back sooner than later !!!
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Thank you! I have already posted a lost dog ad on Paw Boost. It is being shared as is the lost dog ad on the Rutherford County Lost and Found Fur Babies page on Facebook. Abbys information is being shared as we discovered yesterday knocking on doors in our local area.
We are going to take her food bowl (with kibble) along with her dog bed and one of my husbands smelly t shirts into a wooded area down beyond our back neighbors home. This property is being developed into a summer cabin for the owner.
We called the owner and got permission to traipse about and call her. DH drove his tractor around the field Sunday morning and called for Abby. I told DH we need to go down there twice a day and call her.
This property is hard to get to, very rough, wooded with a large pond. If the food disappears, we will get a trail camera and put it up. Maybe we will feed a raccoon or possum but I don’t care.
I have calls to make this morning too. DH and I are living in a brain fog and we both feel like zombies with lack of sleep. Thank you all again.
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Oh, I have a lost dog ad on Craig’s List. Am getting scammer texts back, “Hey,I’ve found your dog.” I respond, “Send me a picture.” They don’t get back to me. Stupid people. I hate people who do this kind of thing.
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Do you have any trail cams you can leave in these spots?
We just went through this 2 weeks ago with one of our dogs. He did thankfully return on his own in 36 hours, but it was terrible. What we did was have it blasted and shared by all of our friends on the 4 local town’s facebook pages. We printed flyers, some paper and some laminated, for street intersections and local businesses. Our family, who did much of the flyer posting, reported that most everyone already had heard about our dog missing. We were also advised NOT to call and search for him, but wait for sightings and then go to the area with our other dog and high value, stinky treats and just walk around quietly.
We, incredibly sadly, also almost immediately had scammers wanting me to input a 6 digit code to get a picture of our dog. This is them trying to get into your phone, Be Very Aware of scammers. We were advised not to offer a reward, because it sends people out looking and chasing, which is what you don’t want. Good luck and definitely put out high scent items like blankets and beds.
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We do not have any trail cameras ourselves but can get them and put up. I have been calling and leaving messages and sending emails off with pictures and Abby’s information to animal shelters around us.
Last shelter advised me to contact EPPIC Animal Recovery which is an organization that uses tracking dogs, cameras, and other things to find lost pets. I sent off an email and hope someone contacts me. Their message said they were very busy. The woman at the shelter said they were very good but expensive. That’s fine.
DH and I are so tired. My husband reads his Bible daily and broke down this morning during his morning prayer. I am having a very hard time leaving messages right now. It’s easier talking to a person!
We are also dealing with a 21 year old mare who is getting over Potomac Horse Fever that also has an abscessed tooth which may be needed to be pulled this month. She gets an antibiotic syringed into her mouth twice daily. But is doing well.
Thanks so much for all your comments and ideas. I have been slowly getting them accomplished.
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You are doing everything! It is massively disheartening when it doesn’t feel as if recovery is getting closer. But sometimes it’s closer than we think.
I hope that you and your husband can get some rest. Sounds like you both need it.
Do get into research on recovering lost dogs. Sometimes that hardest thing to do is nothing but wait for results. Compiling sightings and quietly setting out food. As someone mentioned above, searching and calling can be counter-productive, which is of course against all of our instincts.
It’s agonizing to not have our pet with us and know they are ok. But there is a good chance that a lost dog is surviving, even if not in ideal circumstances.
Hope you get good news soon!
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Some links … OP may already be onto this information, but it is great general knowledge, imo.
Basics … All the way down the list are some pretty thorough suggestions.
The lady running the website linked below is one of the first researchers on lost dog behavior, original field was ‘computational social sciences’ and she decided that could be applied to animals as well …
I really don’t have a lot to add to what everyone else has said, but if you haven’t posted in the Lost and Found section of your local paper(s) yet, do that, too - there are a lot of older people who aren’t on Facebook but will still read the newspapers (at least, in my area!).
Make up a flyer and get it into the vets’ offices in your area, if you haven’t. Include a photo.
Good luck getting her back. I had a Greyhound that would take off in thunderstorms. She was missing for two weeks once, because someone had found her, seen NONE of our ads, and gave her to some guy who uses dogs to run coyotes . . .
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Don’t forget to put up flyers at all your local feed stores - our people are outside people and notice stray animals! Plus, high traffic places like libraries, grocery stores, gas stations, Target, pet food stores, local veterinarians, etc. Make sure all your local police departments, mail service, UPS, town/city highway department, fire department, and anyone who drives around for a living knows about your dog. It’s impossible, but try not to worry. The organization I worked with said 2 important things: most of the time they find their way back on their own, when it’s quiet and 70% of found dogs are found because of flyers, not social media. I’m not positive the 2nd thing is true, because it seemed like everyone had seen our missing dog on facebook, but lots of people (myself included!) aren’t on facebook, so flyers can’t hurt.
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How to catch a lost & spooky dog … this lady had recovered hundreds and made a science out of it.
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